Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-12-31
AN ESSAYIST ON RAILROADS AND
TRADE CENTERS.

Mr.. Appleton Morgan in the Popular
Science Monthly, treating of the Interstate
Commerce Commission and trade centers,
thinks that the student of POI. ical history
a century hence will ask with surprise
why the Commission, with its extraordi-
nary powers, was erected. He takes Senator
| Cullom's address before the Grain Mer-
chants Association, at Springfield, Illinois,
in June last, as a text. The Senator ac-
counted for the law and Commission upon
the theory that the people wish to know
what are the natural channels of trade.
and the effect of the natural laws of trade
upon many of the present commercial
centers. He alleged that what the critics
of the law call natural centers of trade
are " created by railroad favoritism which
has diverted trade from its natural chan
nels into artificial Ones"
This theory Mr.. Morgan sharply chal-
lenges as fallacious. Among railways the
maxim has always been, he AYERS, to try
and accommodate themselves to such trade
centers of the country as already existed,
at any possible expense and at all hazard
The railway assails all obstacles to reach
them, and overcomes all opposition to re-
spond to them. A railway is means of
supply to trade center, or connection
between. two or more trade centers. The
best markets of country are at its trade
centers, and to such, roads must lead.
The establishment of trade center, he
contends with convincing force, is matter
entirely out of the power and beyond the
control of railway companies, and of any
human power. He defes any one to estab-
lish trade center or show where it has
been done artifcially, and challenges any
effort to do so; grass will not grow in the
streets of cities nature and geography de-
cree to be centers of trade.
The history of Chicago proves this
truth. Human foresight did not place
Lake Michigan where it is, but human
foresight did perceive that near its foot
great commercial center must arise. 1t
was this that made Chicago, despite power
full artificial means employed to change
the trade center location to Milwau
kee, Racine, Waukeegan or Michigan
City. The points that the operation of
natural laws passed by in favor of Chicago
fell into the error that the builders of that
city were to blame, and began to berate
them accordingly. But trade went to
Chicago and out of it, and no earthly
power could change It's current, or stay the
memorable tide of Chicago commerce.
Those familiar with the settlement of
the West, and the once bitter antagonism
created between Western towns and Chi
eago, will recognize the exact truth and
justice of Mr.. Morgan's statement and con-
clusion. The essayist Celebrates and forti-
ties the maxim that statutes cannot equal
ize what nature and cosnlic forces have
rendere unequal" Clear perception of this
fundamental truth stated by Mr.. Morgan,
on the part of the people of the United
States, would have saved them from wears
of trouble and turmoil, from millions of
moneyed loss, and from the misleading of
the demagogue and the ill-informed poll
tician. He uses the amusing smile of
bull warning off comets, in illustrating the
futility of a statute that gives railroad
franchise to live with one hand, and with
the other brandishes sword over it if it
completes with its competitors The bottom
objection, however, he thinks, on the part